The subject matter disclosed herein relates to industrial machining. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to management and verification of cutting tool data for an industrial machining center.
Machining of large complex components requires the removal of a great amount of material from an initial piece of raw material. To achieve this material removal a variety of cutting tools are used, some for long durations of time. Each cutting tool has unique characteristics, such as length, diameter, fluting pattern, etc. One or more cutting program, typically NC programs are developed including cutting tool selection and cutting path for various parts of the machining process. When the program or programs are executed correctly, including using the correct cutting tools and following the correct cutting paths, the result is the desired finished component. If an incorrect cutting tool is used at any point in the process, it may result in collision between the tool or tool holder and the part, or other event which damages or even causes the material to be scrapped. The potential sources of cutting tool error include: 1) the cutting tool does not correspond to the programmer's intent such that the cutting tool may be set correctly in its tool holder, but may be dimensionally incorrect (length, diameter, shape does not match programmer's intent; 2) each cutting tool is marked with identifying data in the form of a tag, data chip, or the like on the tool holder, which in some instances, this data may be incorrect; 3) the tool is set in the tool holder incorrectly; or 4) the incorrect cutting tool and tool holder are loaded into the machine for a particular part of the machining program. While the cutting tool is correctly identified, the tool changer apparatus of the machining center may malfunction resulting in the incorrect cutting tool being loaded for use. Reducing or eliminating errors of this sort would result in reduced machining costs through reduction in scrap and/or repair caused by such errors.